"..where she stops nobody knows"

Update as promised, the TaF money arrived in my Skrill account this morning and I have transferred it to my poker account on GG. Taking the costs of transferring into account I have managed to get $180 over to GG (thanks PokerStrategy). A lovely boost for my BR. There is less than £3 left in Skrill so I'll just leave that there for now.

Enjoying being able to play by day during the week. Finding that I am playing for 1 hour ish and then taking a break for a while before getting back to poker. Helps with the concentration and putting the bad beats to rest lol.

Will probably update again during the week before the usual weekly update on Sunday evening.

Cheers
for now

Fagin

Ok, an unplanned update, just logged into GG to find a £110 ticket to a WSOP-c event waiting for me that can only have come from the PokerStrategy raffle YIPPIE!!!! :f_drink::f_thumbsup:.

Thanks PS, i'll see what I can do to make it through to the live day at DTD, I've got a good record of cashing in 1 of 2 tourneys I've played there so would love to make it 2 out of 3!

Cheers

Fagin

So, time for the usual Sunday evening update. Been a good week this week. It started off with getting a $180 boost via PS which was very welcome. I played a lot more than usual due to being home from work and the weather being dodgy enough to keep me mostly indoors.

I played NL10 Mon, Tue and Wed then exclusively Spins on Thursday (139 of them). I played NL10 again on Fri Am but have not realy played since due to feeling unwell, mostly just a sore throat and being hoarse but also just lacking energy and not feeling like I was thinking clearly so have stayed away from the tables and dosed myself with meds my pharmacist recommended.

Despite missing probably 3-4 hours a day on Sat and Sun I put in over 4k hands this week with a finishing BR of $554.55.

Total profit was $227.63 This was made up of $180 from PS, $14 from Thursdays spins and the other $33 from the NL10 hands.

Back to work tomorrow morning and then in the evening its Satellite time with the £110 ticket to the WSOP-c event to play. Looking forward to that and seeing if things play any different with so much more at stake. Looking a tthose who are already registered it seems that they have mostly come from satellites as they have a wide range of chip stacks - 25 players with stacks from 23k to 183k - starting chips for me will be 100k.

That's about it from me for now. I'll probably update after the satellite tomorrow.

Wish me luck

Take care

Fagin

Ok, update from the satellite time.

I late regged at the 3rd blind level and was sat on a table of 3 and had 66 on the button. I raise and the SB (25bb) calls. Flop is all high cards, good for my range and not so good for his. He checks so I bet and he calls. Turn is again higher that my 6s, he checks and I check behind. River is again high and pairs the board. He shoves, I fold. Down to 84k.

About 2 orbits later I get AJd UTG so I open and get 2 callers (still on the same table and this is the 2nd hand I've played). Flop is 10 high with 2 hearts and a club. It checks to me so I c-bet and get 1 caller in the blinds. Turn is a low club and SB checks, I bet small and he shoves. I have to fold.

Another 2 or more orbits later I have not had another reasonable hand and I get 44 in MP. UTG raises and I call to see a flop and hopefully hit a set. The button 3 bets large and the UTG calls so I fold. I wouldn't have hit so managed nothing more than to drop another 2.5bb ish.

A couple of hands later I get AQh UTG. At this point I have about 24bb left. I get 2 callers and the flop comes 4AKr. I bet and get 1 caller in LP. Turn is a blank and with about a pot sized bet left I shove. LP calls and shows 44. Bye, bye me.

I never really got started and they were the only 4 playable hands I was dealt in the 20 minutes or so I played. Not sure that I could have done much different, it just wasn't my night.

On the flip side I played 1 NL10 table for a few orbits and doubled up with AA so that helped to lessen the misery a little.

Hope the other winners of the raffle have better luck.

Take care

Fagin

Back again on another Sunday evening for an update. Not played as much this week as not felt great, nothing major just a sore throat and a cough but enough to not feel that I can play at my best, and when I have played I've been getting some bad beats, particularly on Saturday. This was evidenced by my having my 2nd largest chipstack ever in the GGCheers flip on Sunday and not getting anything out of it.

We've all been there where we make a nice value bet of 3/4 pot on the river with tp J kicker and villain tanks and eventually calls with tp, Q kicker leaving us wondering just how much we would have had to bet to get him to fold!

Had the 2nd nuts beaten numerous times yesterday and today and its been very much when I raise pre with a premium hand I pick up the blinds and when I raise with a middling hand I get 3 or 4 bet and have to fold. I've been bet out of numerous pots where I had 4 to the str8 on the turn and villain bets pot or more and I make the fold only to see that I would have hit on the river. naturally the few times I've called I missed. Frustrating but very much part of poker. It's easy to recall the times where I've lost hands to suckouts and even easier to forget the times that I've sucked out on my opponent (I'm sure it happened sometime, :f_frown:, didn't it?)

Just reported a $16 loss for the week in the bankroll challenge thread which was a shame as I was up over $25 at one point before the bad beats came along to spoil the party. BR stands at $537 now. I do have nearly $60 in rakeback to collect which I have been leaving to accumulate for a few weeks. I'll probably leave it until it hits $100 and then collect it all at once for a nice boost to the BR.

Next week I hope to get back into playing every evening and hopefully get the BR climbing in the right direction again.

Take care all

Fagin

Here I go again with another Sunday evening update. Hope this finds everyone well and making profit! Been a good week overall finishing off with a winning session this evening during which I hit a royal again and got paid ♠_drink:♠_biggrin:

Profit for the week of $53.98 which is always nice to see. I've also got about $65 in cashback to collect but that can stay there for now, I've promised myself that I'll collect it when it hits $100 which should be early May I think, depending of course on how much I play. My Killer Whale promotion ends on 27/04 so I'll lose out a bit then, maybe about 50% on what I get now, not sure how it will work out.

Some observations from reflecting on the week - I noticed that I will check my balance at the start of a session and again at the end. I'll rarely do so while I'm playing although I will normally have a good idea of being up or down a BI or 2. However by Tuesday I will have forgotten what I finished the previous week with and will avoid checking. Come Friday I found myself getting concerned about whether I'll be reporting a profit or not in the BR reporting thread and in here which I find strange as I've never been holding myself accountable in this way before (not as far as poker is concerned anyway). My BR has always been my business alone and the ups and downs were not shared in any way. I never found myself "hiding losses" as such (I've not deposited any of my own money to play poker in over 5 years, thanks PokerStrategy) or really celebrating wins as such except internally so this blogging and reporting in the BR Challenge thread, telling anyone who wants to look, how my BR is progressing is all new to me!

I told a co-worker who knows me quite well that I had a blog and I got a "You've got a blog???!!!" ?(. Seemed like it was quite the surprise to them, maybe even more than it has been for me!

Ah well ... That's enough from me for now.

Catch you all again next Sunday

Take care

Fagin

If just come from the "hand of the day" part of the forum, where you posted the straight flush, getting the maximum value.

I think the Royal flush hand is kinda in the same catagory, bethappy opponents, who keep betting pairs on very wet boards... Keep it up mate!

You can easily hide your balance in the GG Poker software, right? Use it? Or get used to posting winnings haha

Originally posted by Timmaywin
bethappy opponents, who keep betting pairs on very wet boards... Keep it up mate!

This one actually shows me being bethappy, betting a pair on a wet board ... but it was against a specific opponent who I had been keeping an eye on lol

I'll update as normal later, not sure if I'll be playing any more today yet, have to see how the evening goes and how I feel.

Cheers

Fagin

Well, back again for another Sunday evening update. I did play a few more hands this evening (maybe 300 or so) but nothing special happening there.

It's been a strange week that started off with my managing to lose $55 in 2 days. That caused a slight change of mindset and then my dog was ill so I had to take 2 days off work to look after her. This meant that I could put in some more time at the tables and I was determined to get back those lost $s.

I finished the week up by $12 with a final balance of $603 but it was hard work with over 5k hands played. The hand in the previous post helped with the recovery of course.

I realised that I'm losing a lot of $ by calling flop bets where I have overcards with a draw. The turn bets are almost always nearly pot or over pot and I seem to hit so rarely that it's costing me a lot of $ folding to these. I tried raising these bets a few times and was partially successful but I'm seeing a lot of my turn and river bluffs being called, my thin value bets/semi-bluffs being raised and most value bets getting folds rather than calls. It's frustrating when it happens time after time and then when I finally get a turn value bet called they hit the river to win or it's only a very small pot anyway

The 2 hands I posted today, (one above and one in the "hand of the day" thread), have been the exception to this which is partly what led me to post them, gotta celebrate the decent wins somehow

I have downloaded and imported most hands from this year into PT4 and according to a brief look at that I am averagely lucky with flushes and sets but extremely unlucky with straights. Hoping to utilise PT4 to do some better analysis of my hands and see what areas there are that I can improve on. A quick look earlier showed that my red line and blue lines are almost reflections of each other and that I am down slightly over this year so far. Seems strange since my BR is growing! I also have over $70 of rakeback to collect still so that's positive.

So finishing the week on good news of a decent recovery on the tables to post a winning report in the BR Challenge thread and the even better news that my dog seems to have recovered from whatever caused her illness and is nearly back to her normal self :f_love::f_thumbsup:

Take care all

Fagin

Well, here I am again with another Sunday evening update.

This has been a strange week in many ways. It started with my BR at $603 from last Sunday. I finished Monday evening with $603, Tuesday evening finished with $603.

Wednesday I was involved in an accident at work, injuring my leg (just scrapes and bruises) and I only played about 150 hands that evening, finishing on $603 :f_o:. I've not been able to go back to work since due to my leg being very swollen and having to hobble around the house with a stick.

I played 3 or 4 short sessions on Thursday, the same on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and finished the week on $732 for over $120 profit

This is due in part to being more focussed and in part to the 2024 Beginner's Guide to Low Stakes NL Cash. I looked over the starting hand charts in there on Thursday morning since I was sat at home, and decided to make a few changes to my game based on them and immediately noticed a difference. If you are reading this and have not yet checked out the thread I can fully recommend it!

I planned on catching the associated stream on Thursday evening but didn't notice that the starting time was in CET so missed the first hour but still enjoyed what I did manage to catch. I was familiar with LemOn36 from a previous video he did with Barry Carter about satellites that I watched, and the way he talked on stream helped to keep me focussed and interested.

Looking through the charts for the Guide and reflecting on my play showed me a few places where I was potentially dropping $s and so I made a few changes to my ranges and all of a sudden I'm up over $120, so huge thanks LemOn36, Paxis and Fallout86 for all the work you have put into the guide, It certainly helped me and I am not exactly a beginner! (More of an old hand with numerous ingrained faults in my game lol)

According to PokerCraft I am also running about $60 below EV over the last 7 days which is quite interesting considering my profit for the week.

I'm not going to be able to go back to work until after the swelling in my leg goes down (I can't even put a shoe on my foot at the moment) and that's likely to take a while, so I'm expecting to be able to play a fair bit more this week. We'll see how that goes.

Well that's about enough rambling from me, I'll leave it there for now.

Take care all

Fagin

Ok back for another Sunday evening update. A little earlier this evening as I won't be playing any more tonight. I'm finding that my leg gets more troublesome as the day goes on. I'm playing the last 15 or 20 minutes of an afternoon session standing up because sitting just becomes too painful. By early evening sitting or standing is just painful so pain meds are the way to go and they interfere with my thinking so I don't make the best decisions. Not ideal for poker - I've dropped about $30 or more over 3 evenings this week so far, so better to just not play.

On the upside however my BR is now over $802. If anyone had asked me when I started the BR challenge how long it would take to get this far I would have said 5-7 months and I've done it in 14 weeks

When I discovered that I had to set at least a 5x BR target for the challenge I was worried that it would take forever to get there if I even came close. Now I'm confident that I'll get there sooner rather than later. With a goal of $1500 I've only got < $700 to go and I'm up $550 ish already on my starting BR. There's bound to be a few downswings on the way but I'll take them as they come and work through to the other side as best I can.

One interesting hand - I'm sure we all know that feeling when you flop a monster and are just trying to figure out how to get all of villains chips in the middle. It seems that sometimes it's easiest to just let villain do all the work themselves

On the flip side I managed to win $1.05 with a straight flush and $0.66 with quads also

That'll do for now.

Take care all

Fagin

Well, here I go with my usual Sunday evening update and it's been a crazy week!

The week started off with the usual 4 tables of NL10, 3 planned sessions for Monday and that's where it all started to unravel. I dropped 3BI on Monday morning in the first session, couldn't hit a flop with a shotgun at point blank range never mind with the cards I was holding. The few times I did hit I was outdrawn and even getting AA in vs JJ, AK, AQ didn't help. By the end of Monday I was down $50 and had not won a single AI. I was getting more than a little frustrated and every session ended early because of this.

Tuesday I started with a positive mindset, strict game plan, and the downswing just kept on going. I dropped another $30 on Tuesday!

Wednesday I tried again and dropped another $30 by lunchtime and called it a day. I spent the rest of the day reading and watching the snooker.

Thursday called for a reset! I played Spins. 138 x $0.25 spins to be exact. I finished up with a little over $7 profit so that was positive if exhausting!

Friday I didn't play much but managed to get in a few hands before I quit shortly after my AA was cracked by 96s calling AI on the flop with nothing but a backdoor flush draw and hitting runner runner!

Saturday I started afresh, I didn't play in the morning but a session in the evening saw me make a small profit which was positive. I also found that I had received 3 x $1 spin tickets from the leaderboard on Thursday. Those alongside the "Daily freebie" $1 spin ticket pretty much decided my Sunday playing for me.

So to Sunday where I used the tickets and then carried on with $1 spins eventually playing 138 over the day and getting $133 back for my efforts, a loss of $1 overall.

I have to say some of the beats that you take n these spins are brutal. 5 tables in succession I got down to the last 3 and got it all in with the best hand only to lose, AA vs 64os, QQ vs 93os and so on and so on ..... My average finish is apparently 3.14 which figures, just outside the money lots of the time!! I do think my percentages are reasonable though Top finish 37%, Middle finish 39% and bottom finish 22%. It was 38, 38, 22 before this evening where all the 3rd place finishes came along!

So after all that you would expect that I would post a huge loss in the BR Challenge this week .... well actually GG decided that my Platinum Whale finished and just put all the accumulated rewards into my BR which I was not particularly impressed with as I was unaware of it happening until afterwards and when I looked at my account history to see exactly how much it was there were 11 pages of entries just for the rewards!!! So I didn't bother to add up all the individual entries which I am guessing amount to one entry for each day I earned the Platinum Rewards so 100 in total! Absolutely ridiculous if you ask me, even one per week would have been overkill but one per day is just bananas.

So I have ended up posting a small profit this week despite the downswing! I had said that I would collect it when it got to $100 and at the end of last week it was $99.17 so I would have collected it this week anyway but it would have been nice to press that button myself.

Ah well, that's about enough from me for now.

Take care all

Fagin

Another Sunday evening and another update. A little late tonight as I had to watch the Miami Grand Prix, great win for Lando

Been a bit of a yo yo week, I started with $813 and played well getting up to $880 by Tuesday evening and then someone triggered the "doom switch" By Thursday evening I was down to $785. Just could not hit a draw and getting it in with the best hand on the turn was costing me $$$$$$ as they always outdrew me. Even getting it in with the best hand pre flop was not working, just how it goes sometimes when variance decides to hit back at you.

Put all that aside and over Friday evening and the weekend I managed to get back up to $848 so I'll settle for that

Still off work so putting more time into poker recently hitting over 6k hands this week despite not playing as much as I might thanks to dropping so much early in the week.

Spent some time watching the latest video from Lem0n36. A lot in there to digest and all of it very valuable info. I'll be having to read through the written version a few times to help it all stick. I found myself unsure of what the recommend line was while playing over the last 2 or 3 days and just went with what felt right. Worked most of the time so no complaints.

Ah well, enough rambling from me.

Take care all

Fagin

Hi, well here I go again with another update. Not great news this week as I'm reporting a loss of $10 but that's about $50 better than I expected a few days ago.

The week started off on a losing streak and just kept on going. Typical hands being AA in the big blind getting a walk, KK losing to 64os and a Q high flush losing to a straight flush when villain called a 4 bet OOP with 63s. Just a long tough slog of not hitting flops, C-bets being raised when I missed and the odd time I hit everyone just folds when I try to get even a small bet in.

The biggest win of the week was getting C$24.72 in the ThanksGG flipout today!

So still off work with my injured leg. My foot is still too swollen to get a shoe on so until I can get a safety boot on the foot I have to stay off. At least the boss is still paying me so that's something

Only played 1 session today and still managed to get in 7k hands this week. Hope to keep that kind of volume up next week and maybe hit a few flops hard enough to make a profit

Take care all

Fagin

Edit to say that I've been reading back over some previous entries and realised that I initially set a $450 goal for this blog. Well I seem to have achieved that and not even noticed lol.

Next target is 1K, wish me luck!

Hi, a silent reader here!

Originally posted by Fagin
At least the boss is still paying me so that's something

Not only did the free qualifier ticket gave away where you are from, but this one for sure does! Funny UK rules when it comes to getting paid when sick.

Also it is nice to read that basically every single day you are experiencing new stuff on GG- Royal Flush, Flipout, upswing, downswing... - also PokerStrategy Raffles...

Getting a few more replies here, a few tips:

- provide an easy overview about your challenge
1506 hands
+$24
$354/$500 (71%)
- give one hand to discuss in the blog, but limit it to 1 and describe your own thoughts and worries how you could possibly play the hand better
- provide top $ hand per week for both lost and won

That should get you some feedback to start with. I know, smallstakes guys do not have it easy compared to players with $10.000 BR

Originally posted by SvenBe
Hi, a silent reader here!

Originally posted by Fagin
At least the boss is still paying me so that's something

Not only did the free qualifier ticket gave away where you are from, but this one for sure does! Funny UK rules when it comes to getting paid when sick.

Interestingly, while I am being paid my full wage while off, if my wife goes off sick she will be straight on to SSP of less than £100 per week - Funny UK rules again!

Cheers for the feedback and advice, I'll see what I can do, maybe update at a different time. Late on a Sunday evening may not be the best for introspective analysis I might also look to update during the week as hands happen so that things are fresh in my mind, at least as long as I am off work.

I do seem to be getting the full range of experiences on GG lol. It sure makes a change from loading up 4 tables and finding that there are 3 or 4 of the same faces on all of them so having to fight for the few $s that the one or two new players bring along!

Fagin

Sunday evening again so time for an update, I was hoping to post during the week but RL issues combined to drag me away from such things.

So a slightly different format to the update to assist those trying to follow the numbers -

BR at start of this week : $837.42
BR at end of this week : $805.17
Profit/Loss : - $32.25
Hands played this week : 6,143

Most of the loses are due to my playing at least a few times this week when I was not in the right headspace and so this led to me making some mistakes and losing big pots.

I was hoping to post a hand or two but having downloaded this weeks hands and imported them into PT4 I just don't see them there. PT4 is only showing me as having played for 3 days in the first week of this month and nothing else despite saying it successfully imported over 13k hands from this week and last. I'll try to look into it in the next few days and see if I can get the hands I'm looking to post.

Catch up soon

Fagin

So first update for a while ... been a tough few weeks, huge $110 downswing with no winning sessions for 10 days led to me not playing for a while. This seemed to coincide with low mood and an infection in my leg wound and a few other things so a break from poker was probably a good idea.

Started playing again a few days ago and have picked up a few pots so BR now at $751. I've sorted PT4 out - I was looking at MTT tab not cash (probably a sign that I needed a break lol).

Would be interested in any comments on this hand -

Nothing special on villain except his playing with a slightly short stack.

He opens and I 3 bet he calls - fairly standard so I have him on a range of 55-JJ, A10os, Axs maybe some suited connectors 89s+.

I hit top pair and when he checks to me I bet 1/3 pot he calls - I still have him on a similar range.

On the turn when the 3rd flush card hits I bet 1/2 pot to a) represent the flush, b) try to take the pot down there and then as I don't really want to see any more cards. He calls which sets a few alarm bells off.

On the river he shoves ??? Can I call, is this an auto fold? I don't really see that many bluffs that I beat and there are a lot of value hands he can have that could be played like this.

GG Poker - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 89.3 BB
UTG: 103.4 BB
CO: 96 BB
Hero (BTN): 133 BB
SB: 111.1 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K:spade: Q:spade:

fold, CO raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 10.5 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 7.5 BB

Flop: (22.5 BB, 2 players) 4:diamond: 2:spade: K:diamond:
CO checks, Hero bets 7.5 BB, CO calls 7.5 BB

Turn: (37.5 BB, 2 players) 6:diamond:
CO checks, Hero bets 18.8 BB, CO calls 18.8 BB

River: (75.1 BB, 2 players) 7:club:
CO bets 59.2 BB and is all-in,

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I seem to be dropping a lot of $ to turn and river bets like this, so much so that in 2 sessions recently I was only up at the end (by less than $5) thanks to winning an AIPF at some point.

Take care for now

Fagin

Hi Fagin,
Thank you for sharing the hand.

Originally posted by Fagin
Any thoughts would be appreciated. I seem to be dropping a lot of $ to turn and river bets like this, so much so that in 2 sessions recently I was only up at the end (by less than $5) thanks to winning an AIPF at some point.

Nice fold on the river. I think he's range was strong.

I'm not winning player at 10NL but if I choose the action on the turn, I check. Because if Hero bet and Villian called, Villian's call range seems strong like flush, set, maybe two pair and Ax:diamond:. On the river donk bet was could be include Ax:diamond or bluff, but other many hands were value.
If Hero checked, Villian's range still has many weak hands more than top pair. If Villian bet on the river, Hero can call because the pot was still small and Villian's range have many bluff hands. If the 4th flush card come, I choose check or fold.
Also, I think it's good if Hero represent the flush on the turn and river give up.

GL,

Hi VisionBoard, thanks for your insight on the hand.

I considered checking the turn both for pot control and to keep his bluffs in however I have found that when I check turn in these spots I will face a pot sized bet on the river about 70% of the time, maybe 10% of the time the bet is about 2/3 and 10% is a shove/over bet. When he calls turn I can put him on either a flush or a draw with the A♦: the majority of the time. With limited experience at NL10 I can't say if he will see this and call to set up the river bluff, there are likely some NL10 players who would do this but I can't say what % or if this particular villain would.

The few times that he checks the river after calling my turn bet, I then face a spot where, without a flush, I have to check behind as if I bet and he raises I have to fold as the large raise/bet on the river is for value >95% of the time. Note that if turn is check/check and he checks the river, if I bet the river I don't want a call, it's a bet to take down the pot. He is only likely to call me with hands that beat me on this board. There are likely a few exceptions but the vast majority of calls and raises here are with better hands.

I appreciate how the turn bet could be seen as throwing away some BB, and it certainly feels like that when he shoves river, however the issue really becomes how often does the bet win the pot. It would be interesting to be able to see how often the bet wins so as to see if it is profitable but I don't have any idea how to do that. It feels like I will win more often than lose in this spot but I have no data to back up this statement.

Thanks again

Fagin